OTTAWA — Health Canada released Friday a new set of bigger and more graphic health warnings for cigarette packages that will require tobacco companies to overhaul both the inside and outside of packs.

Twelve new images to cover 75 per cent of the outside panel of cigarette packages were unveiled alongside eight new health messages to appear on the inside in full colour — setting Canada apart from other countries.

"Canada is the only country in the world that actually takes over the inside of the package as well as the outside," Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, said Friday. "This is really innovative."

Tobacco companies will also have to include four toxic emission messages for the side panel, along with a national toll-free quit line.

The draft regulations provide that the new warnings would be required on packages at the manufacturer and distributor levels by the end of the year and at the retail level in March 2012.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq committed to the new regulations in December after she signalled in the fall that the file was on hold so the federal government could focus on combating contraband cigarettes.

During the December announcement, Aglukkaq released four of 16 picture-based messages. One of the warnings featured an image of the late Barb Tarbox, who died of lung cancer. On Friday, Health Canada unveiled a second warning featuring Tarbox along with 11 other new images.

Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society, joined Callard to praise Health Canada. The anti-smoking advocates were among the groups that harshly criticized the government last fall when the file appeared stalled.

"The overall package warning system is excellent. The interior messages complement the exterior warnings," said Cunningham.

"Health Minister Aglukkaq deserves strong praise for moving forward on this major public health initiative," added Cunningham.

According to information released Friday, Health Canada estimates the revamped cigarette packages, including an increase in the size of the outside health warnings to 75 per cent from 50 per cent of the panel, will result in dramatic savings to the economy.

The department's cost-benefit analysis estimates that the costs of implementing the proposed regulations would range from $74.1 million to $83.3 million over a 10-year period, including appropriately $11.7 million for the government with the remaining costs accrued by the tobacco industry.

The analysis estimates the benefits of the proposal would range from $3.9 billion to $12 billion over the same period, accrued from reduced morbidity and mortality effects on former smokers who successfully quit — pegging the estimated benefits to exceed the estimated costs by a factor of 47, according to Health Canada.

The new packaging rules will not apply to untaxed cigarettes sold on some aboriginal reserves.

Robbie Dickson, CEO of the Rainbow Tobacco Company, a Mohawk enterprise based on the Kahnawake reserve in Quebec, told a convention of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations this week that his company is responsible for 25 per cent of cigarette sales in Ontario.